


Winter Baking

by stellawind



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Baking, Cookies, Fluff, Multi, SO MUCH FLUFF, Yuletide Spark Exchange, it's really just baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellawind/pseuds/stellawind
Summary: Tarvek and Gil bake chocolate chip cookies, Agatha observes and bakes gingerbread.





	Winter Baking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Candidus_Lupus_Full_Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candidus_Lupus_Full_Moon/gifts).



> For Candidus_Lupus_Full_Moon, for Yuletide Spark Exchange.

Agatha naïvely expected the oldest running argument between Gil and Tarvek to be over politics, or maybe something dating back to Paris, or even who was responsible for their falling out as children. 

No. 

Instead, she discovered, they feuded over chocolate chip cookies. 

Which, since they both insisted on making their own, Agatha couldn’t really object to. Both recipes were delicious, and as far as she could discern the differences all came down to personal taste, mostly.

She was also slowing picking apart her lovers' recipes, and knew that she would eventually have the perfect ideal chocolate chip cookie within two years. Their recipes were duplicates of what they had both learned from two separate cooks, during some long ago lesson on Castle Wulfenbach. She’d learned baking from Lilith, and knew both the science and soul of it. Her cookies would be the best. She would show them. 

Eventually. As it was, the chocolate still had a tendency to explode in the oven, and her time to solve the issue was limited, as she was developing her recipe in secret. 

“You're doing it wrong!” Gil protested, for probably the seventh time in as many minutes. “Raisins don’t belong in chocolate chip cookies.”

“They do,” Tarvek said, and dumped the rest of the raisins into his dough. All of them. And then he started to stir, his eyes never leaving Gil’s.

Agatha supposed mistakes like that happened when you wouldn’t even look at the dough. She’d had Tarvek’s chocolate (with raisin) cookies before, and knew what the mix was supposed to be. 

As did Gil. His amused and superior look clued in Tarvek, who looked at his dough, and swore. 

“What’s wrong, did you add raisins?” Gil said, tone far too sweet. 

“At least I’ve managed to do something,” Tarvek said, gesturing with a raisin covered spoon at Gil’s empty bowl. 

Gil rolled his eyes, and added an egg, butter, and sugar to the bowl, only stirring a few times before adding his dry ingredients. 

Agatha turned away to check her last sheet of gingerbread in the oven. 

Tarvek mocked Gil over his choice to leave out the vanilla and to use the most milky chocolate he could find. 

Agatha refrained from pointing out that neither of them used salt. They would need empirical evidence, she reminded herself. It would be best to present her research all at once, less one them adopt her unfinished recipe and try to add in extra ingredients or simplify it by dumping everything together at once. 

Ignoring Gil's dire implications, Tarvek portioned out his dough into balls, meticulously putting only three cookies on the center each sheet, which he claimed guaranteed even browning

According to Gil, when both of them had been children on Castle Wulfenbach and snuck away from Von Pinn into the kitchens to bake after bedtime, Tarvek would only bake a single cookie per tray, so she guessed there was at least some improvement. 

And, to be fair, some ovens were rather uneven. 

Agatha eyed the dark edge of her gingerbread sheet, as she took it out. It had definitely caught, but she didn’t _think_ it was burned. 

“We really do need a better oven.”

There was gasp. The Castle had learned to give them privacy, but the mention of renovations always drew an opinion. 

“How large? Let’s add spikes!” the Castle suggested, excited. 

“No,” Agatha said flatly. “Just a new oven.” 

And she would probably need to talk to the head chef as well, as she was a spark too, and would have opinions. 

The Castle grumbled, but subsided. Agatha wasn’t fooled; she was sure she’d hear more on the topic later. In fact, she would bet the Castle would be suggesting things right up until the installation, and possibly even after.

Tarvek’s first tray was out and his cookies cooling, as Gil finished spooning out his dough. 

“Would you like one?” Tarvek asked Agatha. “It’ll be a while before he’s done.”

“It’s not how fast you finish, it’s how well,” Gil said, stalking over to steal one of the two remaining cookies from the rack. 

Agatha recognized the prowl in his walk, thought of her gingerbread sheets, which occupied most of the flat surfaces, and decided that even a good make-out session would probably risk her future gingerbread palace. There was barely enough room to make two small batches of cookies now.

“Or the accompaniment,” Agatha added, taking Tarvek’s offered cookie. It nearly crumbled in her hand. Far too many raisins, she thought. 

“Cocoa?” he asked, smug. 

Tarvek was the undisputed king of cocoa. 

“Please,” she said. 

As Tarvek turned to the stove, she tried the cookie. Dense with raisins, but not awful. He used dark chocolate, which she appreciated. 

“What are we assembling first?” Gil asked, around a mouthful of cookie. 

For all Tarvek and Gil bickered, they did eat each other’s cookies, Agatha had noted with amusement, but never brought up.

“The towers, I think,” Agatha said, surveying the parts of her first gingerbread creation of the year. 

She’d made a number in December, but Mechanicsburg had winter holidays aplenty, enough to keep overindulgence jaegers and townsfolk drunk from December until March. Several holidays have even developed in the past few decades, as winter was low season, where tourists were not welcome, a fact the most townsfolk would celebrate, letting loose in ways that would have scared off business. 

Agatha wouldn’t go to every holiday party in town, and skipped some of the larger ones, sending pieces of spark work or other gifts, at Van’s suggestion. 

This particular model was for the Snail Sheppard Gala, in three days. It was one of the larger parties in January, with the best food. 

“Do you think Krosp will try to climb this one?” Gil asked. 

Tarvek snickered, pouring milk into the pot.

“I think he’s sworn off catnip tea after that incident,” Agatha said. “He didn’t enjoy washing the sugar paste out of his fur.”

Gil laughed, and finished portioning out the dough for his other two trays, while Tarvek whisked together the cocoa, checking it occasionally, adding more chocolate or sugar. Agatha propped herself up against the counter and watched them fondly.

She really didn’t need to work on assembling the gingerbread palace today, she decided. It was lazy evening, with most of the staff in town again, at the Beer Guild’s party, despite the heavy snow. They could put the gingerbread up in the storage pantry, and retire to her suite. 

Tarvek handed her a mug of cocoa, which she took with a kiss. He smiled at her went back the oven, pulling out his third tray of cookies. There were still several more batches to bake.

Agatha stole one of Gil’s cooling cookies. This was going to take a while, but there wasn’t anywhere else she’d rather be. As long as there were cookies, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> Gil's chocolate chip cookies have a tendency to be flat (he really doesn't mix things properly) and use milk chocolate. Tarvek's cookies have raisins and dark chocolate, and tend to be much larger in later batches. Agatha tends to burn her cookies. 
> 
> Also, I really debated terminology (biscuit vs cookie and what cookies to use), but decided not to write about traditional Romanian cookies, as if nothing else, I've never made and don't have enough people (who could eat them) to inflict my attempts on.


End file.
